An how ironic that it hurts so much. For years, I used to think that he and I were star-crossed lovers, soul mates held apart by circumstance. As we pull each other’s clothes off in that second-level closet, I revisit that idea…but twisted. I wonder if there’s a dark version of soul mates: people meant to hurt each other. No amount of love, regret, or effort can change that now. Just like no amount of sense can keep me from him.
He wraps his arms around me, so we’re sitting on the stretcher, holding onto one another. His face brushes over my hair.
“God, Evie.” We start to kiss again. Landon lays me on the stretcher. With a dark smile on his mouth, he straps my arms down, unbuttons my pants, reaches a hand into my panties. He kisses me and makes me come with probing fingers and a thumb that skates around my slick and swollen clit.
I’m gasping, my heart pounding. “You’re so good…” Tears gather in my eyes as he looks down on me.
He gives a small smile. “You are, Evie.”
He looks down, and I see that his cock is rock-hard, bent in his pants. I reach for him. “Let me help you. Let my arms go.”
He does. There’s only room in here for one of us to sit or lie down, so I slide down off the stretcher and unzip Landon’s pants, freeing his gorgeous cock.
“Sit up there. Let the doctor take a look at this.”
He chuckles, but it’s strained. He does what I said, sitting with his legs hanging off the edge, his cock jutting upward, his gray eyes glassy.
I’ve never seen anything as hot in my whole life as Landon sitting on a stretcher with his undone face as I pull down his boxer-briefs, exposing cock and balls.
I grab him, fondling his head and giving hard, fast strokes to his thick shaft as Landon groans and grabs my shoulders. Lust spears through me as I feel his balls bounce underneath. I want him in me, and for that reason, I kneel in front of him instead and take him in my mouth. I can’t reach him if I’m kneeling, so I crouch, my knees and thighs aching as I give him the most exquisite pleasure, till he’s got his teeth clamped on his lower lip to keep from moaning, and I taste the salt of just how close he is to losing it. He does moan, finally, and grabs my hair and tries to thrust his hips toward me, and when that fails, he tries to hold onto my head.
“Ahhh, ahhhh—Evie.”
As I blow him, I wonder how many other girls have in the years that I was gone, and whether they were worse or better. Whether their hands knew him like my hands do, whether their hands cared enough to stroke his balls and squeeze him just the way he taught me, suck him deep into my throat so tears streamed down their faces and they wondered if they might pass out from choking on his cock.
And I hope they didn’t.
This is mine. This man is mine. And even if he breaks me—and I know he will—I cannot let him go.
The sound he makes as he comes in my mouth is music to my ears. The way his hands go gentle in my hair…
He tilts his head back, and I stand and wipe my face and warp my arms around him, easing his damp head against my chest. He pants there, and I stroke his hair. I touch his face. I run my hands down his strong arms and kiss his hands. I look down at them. His hands look the very same.
“Why Knoxville?” I whisper.
He looks at the door. “Let’s get out of here,” he says quietly. “I’ll tell you.”
I watch as he puts himself in place and zips his pants. I can’t help smiling as he gets down off the stretcher.
“How am I?” he asks with a crooked grin.
“That was a stiff, hard case you had there, but I think you’ll live.”
“Thanks, Doc.” He rubs a hand over my hair. I have to smooth it down as we step out into the hallway—thank God, empty.
I feel like we should part ways to walk downstairs, but realize if we hadn’t just done what we just did, no one would think one thing of it. As we step into the stairwell, I brush his hand with mine, and Landon’s fingers squeeze mine for a moment.
“Do you have a car here?” he asks.
“Actually, I don’t this time.”
He nods, and we walk in silence through the lobby, to the parking deck, and to—what else—a Ford Focus, just a little newer than my old one.
“What do you need most,” he asks me as we buckle, “sleep or food?”
“Mmmm, food, I think. I’m starving.”
Landon takes me to another parking deck a few blocks down, and to a nondescript door on a busy city street, with just a simple, green and white striped awning over it.
“Back entrance,” he explains as we step into a cozy, candlelit Italian place. I inhale the delicious scent of buttered noodles, and he grins, as if to say, Yeah—right? “I got takeout from here the other day.”
We claim a booth near the back of the dining area. A server comes. I notice that our table has a curtain, and, with a small smile, I pull it shut. How strange that as we browse the menu and place our orders, I can flirt with him, my feet rubbing his legs under the table.
As the waiter leaves to place our orders, I slip my foot from my shoe and find the spot between his legs, and Landon hisses. “Evie—fuck.” He leans over the table. “You want me to come in here?”
I giggle; it sounds more like a cackle. “Just checking on your eggplant.”
He grins, and the feeling I get in my chest is sharp. Last time we knew each other, Landon almost never smiled this big. Our waiter brings bread and oil, and I watch as he pulls a piece of bread off the loaf…the way his fingers move…the way his throat looks as he swallows, those keen eyes on me.
How different he seems now, and how the same. What has he been through in the time we’ve been apart? What kind of person is he now?
He must be wondering the same, because he tilts his head; his lips curve up. “Do you still eat asparagus barely cooked?” he asks.
“You know it.”
“And plain avocadoes?”
“They’re not plain with salt and pepper.” I stick out my tongue between stuffing my face. “Do you still read the paper?”
“Did you doubt it?”
“Nope, I guess not. I do too, now—if I want to be depressed.” I smirk, and Landon rests his forearms on the table. “Tell me, Evie, everything about you.”
My stomach bottoms out. I feel ill at the depth of my deceit—but how can I tell him? I just…can’t. Not yet. I need him in this moment…even if it’s wrong.
“What kinds of things?” I hedge.
“No less than ten,” he says. “One for every year we’ve been away.”
I find it curious the way he phrases it, as if we both just took vacations.
He leans forward slightly, his expression darkening. “What happened when I left, Evie?” He clasps his hands and watches my face with those eagle eyes, and I feel like I might be sick. “You said you didn’t get my letters? None of them?”
His face looks pained. I have to lie. I nod, because were I to tell the truth, my story wouldn’t add up. And if my story doesn’t add up, this is over.
He shakes his head. “Tell me everything.”
Seven
Landon
I listen as Evie talks. I watch the way her fingers start to pick at her bread. When our food comes, she delays her first few bites until I prod her. Then she goes on, telling me of how her parents hid my letters from her. How they told her if she went to Cambridge and stayed with her aunt and got her head screwed on straight, she could come home and reach out to me again.